The long-term goal of establishing the Cross-Country franchise, since privatisation in 1997, has been to create a franchise specifically responsible for long-distance and high-speed rail routes that bypass London, encouraging it to make quality service on these routes a priority.[citation needed]

Typically, during weekday daytimes, each of these six routes sees one CrossCountry train per hour, with the exception of Birmingham to Leicester and Birmingham to Nottingham (which each see two). These services combine to provide higher frequencies on the following sections:

Birmingham to Bristol: half-hourly

Birmingham to Leicester: two trains per hour (of which one per hour carries on to Stansted Airport).

Birmingham to Manchester: half-hourly

Birmingham to Newcastle: two trains per hour (of which one per hour continues to Edinburgh)

Birmingham to Nottingham: half-hourly

Cardiff Central to Nottingham: hourly

Bristol to Cheltenham: half-hourly

Cheltenham to Birmingham: three trains per hour

Reading to Birmingham: half-hourly (one via Coventry, one via Solihull although not stopping)

The tender did not require retention of the services beyond Guildford after December 2008, so the services to Gatwick Airport and Brighton ceased.[8][9] As a result, all CrossCountry services now completely avoid London.

The high-level platforms at Tamworth are served only by CrossCountry, but are not considered a separate station from the low-level platforms. The whole station is therefore managed by the main operator of the low-level platforms, which is London Midland.

Manea was only served by CrossCountry until 2013, when Greater Anglia started running 1 train every two hours at the station in addition to the CrossCountry services there.

To try and create a more pleasurable traveling experience, CrossCountry has designated 4 stations as alternative changeover stations. Cheltenham Spa, Derby, Leamington Spa and Wolverhampton were selected. The aim here was to make connection times shorter - with the stations selected much smaller. For example meaning that passengers traveling from Cardiff to Edinburgh could change at Cheltenham Spa instead of Birmingham New Street reducing transfer times - at Cheltenham Spa both trains would arrive and depart from the same platform. This avoids having to change trains at Birmingham New Street, which is a larger, more complex station. These 4 stations are marked on the CrossCountry route map, in yellow.

Latest performance figures released by NR (Network Rail) for this period (period 7 of 2013/2014) report a PPM (Public Performance Measure) of 89.2%[15] and a Moving Annual Average (MAA) up to 12 October 2013 of 87.4%.

To operate services to Paignton and Newquay on Summer Saturdays two High Speed Trains were hired from National Express East Coast in 2008.[25] High Speed Trains were hired from East Coast and East Midlands Trains on a number of occasions to operate services from Edinburgh Waverley to Plymouth when HSTs or Voyagers were unavailable

The tilt function on the Class 221 Super Voyagers was removed in 2008. It was no longer required as tilt was not required on the parts of West Coast Main Line that CrossCountry serve.[28][29] CrossCountry says this change will improve the trains' reliability and reduce maintenance costs.

The Class 220 Voyagers and Class 221 Super Voyagers underwent refurbishment at Bombardier, Derby in 2008/09. This involved removing the shop, adding 25% extra luggage space and fourteen extra standard class seats to the Class 220 Voyagers and 20% extra luggage space and sixteen standard class seats to the Class 221 Super Voyagers.[30] The interiors were given a refresh in 2011/12 with the standard class seats recovered in the existing red and blue moquette and first class done with a maroon moquette. In summer 2014, CrossCountry began removing the quiet coach designation from such vehicles in its Voyager sets, believing them to be outdated and take up an excessive amount of space on a four-car unit. It is retaining the quiet coaches on its five HST sets.[31]